INTERIORS doesn’t propose a strong position or thesis. It’s more a hope that some threads become apparent as one passes through it. These may draw from specific works or relate indirectly to the spaces that form in the relationship between them, as when a strip of wood, metal or stone at the bottom of a doorway forms a boundary that, when entering a house or room, is crossed. Even when stated modestly, this intention carries a Utopian sentiment. One that materially counterbalances with the exhibition itself. And it’s at this intercession, where the social and material overlap, that the exhibition opens to something interesting. Not as it manifests an interrogating premise, per se, but offers, in a simple delineation of space, an arrangement of furniture or the curving pine of an Utö stool, a reminder that social forms of life often contour in something concrete. How boundaries reify in boundlessness.

Founded by artists and critics in 1966 in Warsaw, Poland, the Foksal Gallery has thrived through transitions in the realms of government, the economy, and the art world. Today, at a time when New York City’s artist-run spaces are encountering serious threats to survival, the case of Foksal Gallery becomes ever more relevant. How does Foksal Gallery illuminate new ways of building a sustained art community and legacy? The archives tell the story of the gallery as a model of an arts space run as a collaboration between artists and critics and engaged consistently in critical reflexive dialogue about its purpose/mission and meaning.

The exhibition opens on the occasion of Foksal Gallery’s 50th anniversary featuring the Foksal Gallery Archive’s unique set of resources of original papers, photographs, printed matter and artworks collected since the gallery’s founding. The exhibition includes early exhibition catalogues, invitations, posters and flyers, often designed by the artists themselves. Original material such as maquettes and designs for exhibitions are also to be found, as well as a large amount of photographic documentation of performances, installations and social gatherings at the gallery as well as sound and moving image recordings of early happenings and events.

The theoretical writings of the core critics who formed Foksal’s philosophical agenda, such as Wiesław Borowski, Hanna Ptaszkowska, Mariusz Tchorek and Andrzej Turowski, were provocations towards rethinking how art could be presented. This exhibition pays homage to their work and theoretical rigor which emphasized new artistic concepts that changed how art could take place and disperse itself. These key texts form the enduring legacy of the Foksal Gallery.

Thoughts Isolated, the exhibition’s title, is excerpted from a text entitled “The Living Archives” by Wiesław Borowski and Andrzej Turowski (1971), in which the artists-critics stated in bold text: “WE DO NOT PRESENT HISTORY BUT WE KEEP THOUGHTS ISOLATED.” This notion captures Foksal Gallery’s continued exploration of role of the archive in the gallery’s program. The archive as a recurring conceptual figure is also to be found in Tadeusz Kantor’s Panoramic Sea Happening (1967), during which a set of archival documents was submerged at sea; in Borowski and Turowski’s The Living Archives exhibition (1971), where the entire gallery was transformed into an information exchange for international conceptual art documents; and most notably in traveling exhibitions to Edinburgh, Glasgow and London in 1979-1980. As we trace the various ways in which the archive was staged throughout the history of the gallery, this exhibition is similarly an experiment with archival practice.

In its current state, housed in same small gallery space in Warsaw in wooden boxes designed by the artist Krzysztof Wodiczko in the 1970s, the Foksal Gallery Archive demonstrates the role played by the gallery in shaping the history of contemporary Polish art. These materials give evidence of the experimental nature of the works displayed at the gallery by Polish artists like Zbigniew Gostomski, Maria Stangret, Tadeusz Kantor, Edward Krasiński, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Jarosław Kozłowski and Stanisław Dróżdż. It constitutes a singular collection of records which are of immense value in both artistic and historical terms and document fifty years of work within various political realities and in collaboration with a diversity of artists, from Henryk Stażewiski, pioneer of Polish avant-garde, to an international roster of conceptual artists like Lawrence Weiner, Daniel Buren, Christian Boltanski, and Ben Vautier.

Curators: Katherine Carl, Katarzyna Krysiak, David Senior.

Cooperation: Bartek Remisko and Martyna Stołpiec. With special thanks to Anna Ficek and Jennifer Wilkinson.

The exhibition was made possible by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland; the support of the Polish Cultural Institute-New York; and the patronage of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute/Culture.pl; and Anka Ptaszkowska.

In Veiled, McCloud will occupy each of the gallery’s three exhibition spaces with a stunning presentation of over twenty new, large-scale abstract works from four different series. Drawing inspiration from a recently completed two-month artist residency at Bellas Artes Projects in the Philippines, these new works further McCloud’s visceral reclamation of painting with unconventional industrial materials combined with traditional oil pigment and woodblock printing techniques.

The exhibition’s title, Veiled, is taken from McCloud’s most recent series, in which he has obscured the vibrant, detailed surfaces of his paintings with sheets of aluminum foil. The opaque, mirror-like quality that dominates the resulting composition provokes an instinctive search for self-reflection, yet prohibits a true impression of the viewer. The work begs one to consider what is hidden and what is revealed, both within the work and within ourselves.

Expanding McCloud’s investigation into the limits of utilitarian materials and interest in confronting aesthetic perceptions, the exhibition will feature a new suite of the artists’ hand-stamped paintings in a gold and white palette. The works, on tarpaper, have been torched, hammered and branded with hand-carved wooden blocks made during McCloud’s residency in the Philippines. The exhibition will also present a series of exquisite new works McCloud created from exceptionally humble and commonplace materials––industrially manufactured polyethylene sacks he collected from waste pickers in the Philippines. By deconstructing and reimagining an object globally associated with refuse and waste, McCloud has engendered extraordinary works that exist somewhere between painting, assemblage, and sculpture.

On the occasion of this exhibition, Sean Kelly and Hatje Cantz Verlag will publish the first major monograph of the artist’s work. Featuring an essay by Isolde Brielmaier, this 96-page full-color catalog will be available for purchase at the gallery in late January 2017.

Born in in Palo Alto, California in 1980, Hugo McCloud currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work is included in the permanent collection of several international institutions, including the North Carolina Museum for Art, Raleigh, North Carolina; the Zabludowicz Collection, London, England; and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC. His work has been exhibited globally, including at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Arts Club, London; Fondazione 107, Turin, Italy; the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy; and at the MoCADA Museum, Brooklyn, NY.

Borrowed Time: Icelandic Artists Look Forward presents the work of contemporary Icelandic artists currently engaged in the global dialogue on sustainability and the issues—environmental, economic, cultural, and social—that surround it. Featuring photography, video, collage, and installation, the exhibition invites viewers to challenge their assumptions and explore new modes of seeing.